February 2002

The last two weeks have been spent planning out something that won’t happen for another 3 months – summer vacation. I’ve never planned out this coveted 12 week vacation period so well before.

But this year it’s different. I’m a college student now and I need money. I could say that I want a summer job for the experience, but we all know that I need both money and something impressive to put on my resume.

Along with a job comes a place to live. RPI has graciously agreed to house students over the summer in their un-air-conditioned dorms for a mere $800. But halfway through the summer, they want to renovate the summer housing dorms, so all students are moving.

So I have spent the past few weeks looking for a job and a place to live for the summer. I thought that it would be a bit more difficult, but I started early. That, my friends, is the key to success. Landlords save their slums for the procrastinators who try to find housing for June on May 20th. The best jobs have interviews in February also.

My advice to those of you who want to do something like this for the summer is to have started two weeks ago. But since Doc Brown never existed in real life, you’ll just have to suffice with starting now. Good luck!

Just when I thought I my life wouldn’t get any more weird or interesting, I get this e-mail from my Aunt. I’ll paste her message here because I can’t tell the story any better!

We had something weird happen Friday night about 10pm. Two Highway patrol offices came to the door. It about scared the life out of me. They wanted to know if I knew Lee Emmert. I told them he was my nephew. They said that there had been a hit and run accident and someone got the license plate number and it was registered to Lee Emmert.

They asked me the same questions about 3 times. They then asked me is I knew any other Emmerts that lived here. I said no. They said it was a blue car and it had happen on highway 30. I read about it the next day but they had not found the person. I am glad Lee doesn’t live here. I would change my name if it was me.

So pedestrians beware, living in Egypt has changed the way I drive forever!!

This week has signaled a couple of firsts for me when it comes to AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Here at RPI it is on the list of staple software items that everyone has (and uses). At any given time, generally around 75% of my buddy list of RPI people is online.

In my time I’ve met complete strangers via AIM and conversed for hours about every topic imaginable. Since I connected to the internet for the first time about 10 years ago (anyone remember AOL version 1.0?) I’ve been involved in chatting. So what is so significant about the past few days?

First of all, out of the blue I found the screen name an old friend I knew 8 years ago. She and I literally grew up together, and when I discovered her e-mail address in an article she wrote on her high school’s website, I couldn’t resist the temptation to add her to my buddy list!

The second notable encounter came with my best friend’s female friend (Lara, I’m not sure what to call you!). But is an amazing person, and Josh is definitely lucky.

So while I still give my fellow RPI peeps a hard time about chatting on AIM during every second of their spare time, I must say that I have recently been reaping the benefits. Now if they could only beef up that Talk function, I would be able to give my poor fingers a rest!